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Thursday, November 20, 2003

Review - Quadropus

Artist: Estradasphere

Posted
on Thu, Nov 20, 2003 at 4:00 AM

Closely aligned with the Mr. Bungle universe (Web of Mimicry is Trey Spruance's label) and deeply infected with the same exploding-genre syndrome of Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3. Like the Chiefs, Estradasphere likes to pull in Middle Eastern influences, but there's also a strong undercurrent of high-school band arrangements (see: "King Krab Battle"), death metal ("Jungle Warfare" features Cephalic Carnage's John Merryman) and beatbox doo-wop ("Dubway"). Yeah, it's all over the place. Like the rest of the 'Sphere's releases, though, "Quadropus" isn't nearly as spastically frenetic as their Bay Area freaks of kin. Locking into fairly consistent (if bizarre) grooves for the duration of these lengthy tracks, "Quadropus" is more substantially invigorating (if less thematically rewarding) than the Chiefs and far more easy to keep up with than Mr. Bungle.